UM Panabo College

Department of Teacher Education

P.N. Arguelles St., San Francisco, Panabo City
Telefax # (084) 628-6437
Week 6-7: Unit Learning Outcomes (ULO): At the end of the unit, you are expected to

a. Investigate various dynamic natures and theory practice view of grammar in an online corpus;

Big Picture in Focus: ULOa. Investigate various dynamic natures and theory practice
view of grammar in an online corpus;

Metalanguage
Below are the essential terms that you are going to encounter in the pursuit of ULOc: Recognize
the importance of teaching literature subjects. Again, you are advised to frequently refer to these
definitions to help you understand the succeeding topics. I would like to highly recommend that you
refresh your knowledge about ULOa and ULOb to understand further ULOc.

Corpora – a collection of written texts, especially the entire works of a particular author or a body of
writing on a particular subject
Interlanguage – a language or a form of language having features of two others; typically pidgin or a
version produced by a foreign learner
Pedagogical – pertaining to teaching

Essential Knowledge

The educational curriculum throughout the world has apparently evolved and is highly influenced
by pioneering education researchers and curriculum experts. It is commendable to note that until now, we
pay tribute to these seminal works because they have laid down the foundations of what accounts as
quality curriculum, teaching and learning.

INVESTIGATING GRAMMAR USE THROUGH ONLINE CORPORA

The corpora as a classroom resource approach
As in any other communicative situation, in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) contexts learners need
to know what to say and how to say things with words – to echo Austin‘s (1962) well-known postulates.
For these learners, knowledge of English grammar is necessary in order to communicate accurately,
meaningfully and appropriately, taking into consideration the specific purposes, participants and
situations involved in the communication. As Johns (1994) argues, one effective way of developing
accurate and appropriate uses of a language is through learners‘ exposure to authentic corpus-based
materials. With the advance of the new technologies, corpora and concordances have become a valuable
source for retrieving genuine examples of language use for both research and pedagogy. Corpora have
made a significant impact on language description and research. Structural and functional aspects of
academic written and spoken discourse have been described in Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad, and
Finegan‘s (1999) exhaustive description of English grammar, based on corpus evidence and contrasting
usage across registers. Theoretically-oriented research also suggests that linguistic analysis benefits from
evidence of language used in real contexts. Using multidimensional analysis, Biber (2003, 2006)
describes systematic differences in the co-occurrence of linguistic patterns in university speech and
writing in order to provide accurate descriptions of EAP-specific phraseology. The development of
specialized genre-based corpora has enabled significant EAP research to be carried out involving analyses
of discoursal, pragmatic, rhetorical and genre features of both academic writing (Breivega, Dalh, &
Fløttum, 2002; Hewings, 2001; Hyland, 1998; Reppen, Fitzmaurice, & Biber, 2002) and academic speech

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Department of Teacher Education
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(Ädel, 2006; Pérez-Llantada & Ferguson, 2006; Poos & Simpson, 2002; Simpson & Swales, 2001). These
studies have implicitly or explicitly indicated that the structure and functions of grammar patterns in
specialized discourses should represent a ―fundamentally important part of writers‘ and speakers‘
communicative repertoire‖ (Biber, Conrad. & Cortes, 2004, p. 400), and hence require pedagogical
attention in EAP courses.
The novelty of the approach lies in the fact that it is grounded in Bhatia‘s multi-perspective model for
discourse analysis and seeks to facilitate the students‘ identification and interpretation of
lexicogrammatical items from textual, genre and social perspectives. Specifically, this study addressed the
following research questions:
1. Can corpus-based instruction and materials lead to enhanced understanding of the textual,
genre and social aspects of grammar in real contexts of use?
2. Can corpus-informed instruction and materials help students develop the ability to put into
practice their understanding of grammar in context within a range of academic situations?
Gilquin, Granger and Paquot (2007, p. 324) have pointed to the limited development of corpus-informed
materials in EAP contexts. To our knowledge, no descriptive account of a corpus-based EAP course
grounded in a multi-perspective analysis of discourse has been reported to date. To fill this gap, this paper
describes classroom procedures using corpus-based instruction and materials and reports on the students‘
linguistic output and their responses to the approach.
The student as researcher approach
The corpus approach (data-driven learning approach)
Data-driven learning (DDL) refers to the use of a corpus of texts through the concordancing software
when trying to find answers to linguistic questions by observing different uses of language. Although it is
not a communicative approach, it has benefits such as being learner-centered, using authentic language,
and promoting learner discovery (Allan, 2009). Data-driven learning (DDL) was defined by Johns and
King (1991, p.iii) as ―the use of computer-generated concordances in the classroom to get students to
explore regularities of patterning in the target language, and the development of activities and exercises
based on concordance output.‖ Johns (1991) lays out the principles of DDL as follows:
1) The learners discover the language through their own questions and the languagelearner is a
researcher who has access to linguistic data.
2) The computer acts as an informant answering the questions that the learners ask themselves.
3) The basic computer tool is the concordancer. Thus, the concordances on a computer screen show
all instances of a word or phrase in a key word in context (KWIC) format.
4) The teacher is in the role of a facilitator in a student-centered classroom and concordancers are
the important focus for learning.
Corpus approach or data-driven learning approach (DDL) includes hypothesis formation while carrying
out inductive corpus-based exercises, teacher‘s explicit explanations either to confirm or correct these
hypotheses, and thus, hypothesis testing in terms of follow-up exercises regarding the task and output by
learners (Chujo, Anthony & Oghigian, 2009). One of the central principles of the corpus approach is that
vocabulary and grammar are interrelated rather than distinctive from each other (Halliday, 1992; Sinclair,
1991 cited in Yoon & Hirvela, 2004). Vocabulary instruction is moving away from teaching words in
isolation, and placing a greater emphasis on exposing learners to lexical items in authentic and
meaningful contexts. Furthermore, there is a growing amount of evidence that much of the English
language is formulaic which suggests that teaching vocabulary as separate from grammar has limitations
(Balunda, 2009).
Exploring World Englishes and Corpora of other languages
Almost from the very beginning, corpus-based research on the English language has taken regional
variation into account: the first standard reference corpus for English – a one-million-word sample of
printed American English (AmE) text extracts from 1961 – was soon to be followed by a matching corpus
of British English (BrE). These two corpora – named Brown (AmE) and Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen (BrE)
corpus after the universities involved in their compilation – were then followed by corpora that made use

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Department of Teacher Education
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Telefax # (084) 628-6437
of more or less identical sampling criteria to enable usage-based investigation of Australian (AusE), New
Zealand (NZE), and Indian English (IndE). Since its beginnings in the 1960s, when computer storage
capacity was still very limited and usage-based research went against the dominant approach in the field
(i.e. introspection-based grammaticality judgments), English corpus linguistics has come a long way. This
chapter looks at developments in corpus linguistics in the WEs context in various subdisciplines,
including both synchronic and diachronic approaches.
Generally speaking, Biber et al. (1998: 4) characterize the corpus-based approach by the following key
components:
 it is empirical, analysing the actual patterns of use in natural texts;
 it utilizes a large and principled collection of natural texts, known as a ―corpus,‖ as the basis for
analysis;
 it makes extensive use of computers for analysis, using both automatic and interactive techniques;
 it depends on both quantitative and qualitative analytical techniques.
Corpora as a Testing Bed for Models of World Englishes
Corpus evidence has provided a testing ground for the typologies of different WEs (including Kachru‘s
Three Circles Model), Schneider‘s (2003, 2007) Dynamic Model, and the Epicenter Hypothesis. With
respect to Kachru‘s (1985) Three Circles Model, numerical evidence on individual grammatical patterns
does not necessarily support the distinction between ENL, ESL, and EFL varieties: Taking a grassroots
perspective, Hundt and Vogel (2011) show that not all ESL varieties share with learner Englishes a
propensity to overuse the progressive. Szmrecsanyi and Kortmann‘s (2011) bird‘s-eye view does provide
evidence of an ESL/EFL divide. They compare evidence from the BNC, ICE, and ICLE on a set of
features to characterize grammatical syntheticity and analyticity, respectively. Their study shows that
learner varieties systematically differ from ESL varieties when compared with a single ENL (BrE):
Learner Englishes are more analytic than ESL varieties, which in turn are more analytic than comparable
BrE writing (Szmrecsanyi and Kortmann, 2011: 182).
THE DYNAMIC NATURE OF L2 LEARNER LANGUAGE
Early studies of learner language: L1-L2 comparisons
LANGUAGE IS A DYNAMIC SYSTEM. It comprises the ecological interactions of many players:
people who want to communicate and a world to be talked about. It operates across many different agents
(neurons, brains, and bodies; phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, constructions, interactions, and
discourses), different human conglomerations (individuals, social groups, networks, and cultures), and
different timescales (evolutionary, diachronic, epigenetic, ontogenetic, interactional, neurosynchronic).
Cognition, consciousness, experience, embodiment, brain, self, communication and human interaction,
society, culture, and history are all inextricably intertwined in rich, complex, and dynamic ways in
language. Yet despite this complexity, despite its lack of overt government, instead of anarchy and chaos,
there are patterns everywhere, patterns not preordained by God, by genes, by school curriculum, or by
other human policy, but patterns that emerge—synchronic patterns of linguistic organization at numerous
levels (phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, discourse, genre, etc.), dynamic patterns of usage,
diachronic patterns of language change (linguistic cycles of grammaticization, pidginization, creolization,
etc.), ontogenetic developmental patterns in child language acquisition, global geopolitical patterns of
language growth and decline, dominance and loss, and so forth. As a complex system, the systematicities
of language are emergent and adaptive. Only by adopting an integrative, dynamic framework will we
understand how they come about.
An emergentist account of second language acquisition (SLA) views the limited end-state typical of many
naturalistic adult L2 learners as the result of dynamic cycles of language use, language change, language
perception, and language learning in the interactions of members of language communities. The major
processes include the following:
1. Usage leads to change: High frequency use of grammatical functors causes their phonological
erosion and homonymy.

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Department of Teacher Education
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Telefax # (084) 628-6437
2. Change affects perception: Phonologically reduced cues are hard to perceive.
3. Perception affects learning : Low salience cues are difficult to learn, as are
homonymous/polysemous constructions because of the low contingency of their form–function
association.
4. Learning affects usage:
a. Where language is predominantly learned naturalistically by adults without any form
focus, a typical result is a Basic Variety of interlanguage, low in grammatical complexity
but communicatively effective. Because usage leads to change, maximum contact
languages learned naturalistically can thus simplify and lose grammatical intricacies.
Alternatively,
b. where there are efforts promoting formal accuracy, the attractor state of the Basic Variety
can be escaped by means of dialectic forces, socially recruited, involving the dynamics of
learner consciousness, form-focused attention, and explicit learning. Such influences
promote language maintenance. And so on, always, language shifts and changes, and
cycles of usage evolve dynamically onward. This article outlines each of these processes
in turn.
Naming “the system”: Selinker’s concept of interlanguage
Technically, Interlanguage is a term with applied linguistic color. It is defined by its coiner, Larry
Selinker (1972), who in his article Interlanguage, views this term as ―a separate linguistic system based on
the observable output which results from a learner‘s attempted production of a target language (TL)
norm‖. His definition draws our attention to the oddness of the second language (L2) learner‘s language
despite his/her attempt to follow the linguistic rules of L2. Additionally, labeling this linguistics system as
a separate one implies that it is neither first language (L1)-like linguistic system nor an L2-like one

Corder (1981) states that the learner‘s language could be considered as a dialect in the linguistic sense. He
means that two languages which share some rules of grammar become dialects. Based on this claim, he
states that language A and language B as illustrated in Figure 2 are in a dialect relation which leads to IL.

During the process of L2 learning, the learner prepares the hypotheses about the rules of his/her TL.
These rules can be viewed as mental grammars which create the IL system. Such grammars are exposed
to some influences that might be external to the learner and/or internal derived from the learner's internal
processing. In this case, it could be inferred that the learner's performance is variable. So the learner
changes his/her grammar from time to time by deleting rules, adding rules and reconstructing the

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 UM Panabo College
Department of Teacher Education
P.N. Arguelles St., San Francisco, Panabo City
Telefax # (084) 628-6437
complete system. This indicates the role of IL in every stage of L2 learning. Checking and rechecking
hypotheses take place through the gradual process of L2 learning. The learner keeps changing his/her own
IL until the TL system is fully shaped. This process is called 'Interlanguage Continuum'. Figure 3
illustrates this process.

They are summarised as follows:

(1) SLA is a "process of increasing conformity to a uniform TL" (590-591).
(2) L2 learning is a gradual development from MT towards the TL.
(3) A system of certain rules which is neither the system of NL or MT nor the system of FL or TL
can be developed by the learner at every stage of the language learning process. This system is a
separate linguistic one.
(4) The language learning process includes hypothesis-testing or rule formation.
(5) L2 learner's errors are natural.
(6) Many language learners do not achieve the TL competence
As was mentioned earlier, Selinker (1972) assumes the existence of IL as a result of dissimilar utterances,
as observable data, of the same sentence created by L2 learners and NL learners of the TL. Accordingly,
Selinker (1972:214) made a group of three sets of utterances, which can be psychologically related data of
L2 learning, and theoretical predication in an important psychology of L2 learning in order to be the
surface structure of an IL produced sentence. These sets are as follows:
(1) utterances in the learner's MT produced by the learners.
(2) IL utterances produced by the learners.
(3) TL/FL utterances produced by NL speakers of that TL.

Investigating systematicity in learner language: The morpheme order studies

The morpheme order studies were taken as evidence against the behaviourist theories since they
supported that children do not learn the L1 through the formation of a habit but rather that they acquire
language through developmental stages. This section examines some of the studies that fall within the
morpheme order studies and which discovered a consistent order for L1 and L2 morpheme acquisition. It
is worth noticing that this section is divided into two parts. On the one hand, the early stages of the
morpheme order studies are reviewed. This includes the research conducted by Roger Brown (Brown,
1973) who proposed a consistent order for L1 acquisition which later on was supported by de Villiers and
de Villiers (de Villiers & de Villiers, 1973). These investigations encouraged other researcher in L2
acquisition. On the other hand, a more recent perspective towards the explanation of L2 English
morphemes is commented (Goldschneider & DeKeyser, 2001; Kwon, 2005; Ellis, 2006; Hulstijn, 2015;
Hulstijn, Ellis & Eskildsen, 2015).
The Early Approaches to the Morpheme Order Studies
The next section, which examines the early stages of these studies, has been divided into two parts.
Firstly, the most influential studies concerning L1 acquisition are discussed, since they became the
background for the morpheme order studies (Brown, 1973; de Villiers & de Villiers, 1973). Secondly,

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Department of Teacher Education
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Telefax # (084) 628-6437
research regarding L2 acquisition (Dulay & Burt, 1973, 1974a, 1974b, 1975; Bailey, Madden & Krashen,
1974; Hakuta, 1976) is described.
The Morpheme Order Studies in First Language Acquisition
As it has been previously stated, this section comprises L1 studies as being the background for what is
known as the morpheme order studies. Roger Brown was the first researcher who found that L1 learners
follow a certain order when learning their native language. Brown (1973) carried out a longitudinal
study2 in which the subjects were three children. He measured children‘s speech by calculating the mean
length of utterance (MLU). Through this measurement device, it could be appreciated how any new
knowledge increased the length of utterances. In order to know that children had acquired the morphemes
they have encountered, Brown (1973:398) considered that those morphemes had to appear ―in 90 percent
of all obligatory contexts for three successive two-hour samples‖ (see Table 1 for the order of the 14
morphemes). This method for scoring data is also known as suppliance in obligatory context (SOC). He
looked at grammatical morphemes, since they are obligatorily required in certain contexts and because
they can be identified and quantified. As defined by Brown (1973:255):
The Morpheme Order Studies in Second Language Acquisition
Soon after Brown‘s study (1973), the first researchers to investigate L2 acquisition were Dulay and Burt
(1973, 1974a, 1974b). As Kwon (2005:2) points out ―[t]he idea was to demonstrate that second language
acquisition (SLA) was not just a matter of learned response but that individuals developed second
language competence according to a predictable series of benchmarks‖. In 1973, Dulay and Burt carried
out a study to see whether L2 English students follow a consistent order when acquiring the L2.
Developmental sequences in L2 acquisition
The horizontal dimension specifies the ―language activities‖ in which language users engage (pp. 44–57)
in terms of (1) context of language use (e.g., in the personal and professional domain), (2) communication
themes (e.g., travel and health), and (3) communicative tasks and purposes (e.g., making enquiries from
employment agencies and reading safety instructions). Chapter 4 of the CEFR contains 40 scales
specifying a large number of forms of oral and written language use (pp. 58–84), including several scales
of strategic competence. The horizontal development also comprises dimensions of more general
―communicative language competences‖ (p. 108), subdivided – as in the language proficiency model of
Canale and Swain (1980) – in linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic competences. Chapter 5 contains
13 scales for these competences (pp. 110–129).
The vertical dimension, outlined in Chapter 3 and applied to all the descriptor scales in Chapters 4 and 5,
consists in ―an ascending series of common reference levels for describing learner proficiency‖ (p. 16).
The authors caution that ―any attempt to establish ‗levels‘ of proficiency is to some extent arbitrary, as it
is in any area of knowledge or skill. However, for practical purposes it is useful to set up a scale of
defined levels to segment the learning process for the purposes of curriculum design, qualifying
examinations, etc.‖ (p. 17).
The development of communicative language competence can thus be seen both at the level of expanding
one‘s range of communicative activities and at the level of performing them in increasingly more
complex and sophisticated ways.

Explaining systematicity and variability in learner language

Recent accounts have confronted us with con icting explanations that attempt to give details on
interlanguage development. The main reason for disagreement among researchers seems to be the
discreteness or the lack thereof as characteristic aspect in the portrait of interlanguage development at
different points in time. The antagonism of these theoretical stances has resulted in representations that
differ across frameworks for the study of interlanguage systematicity. Some representations view
interlanguage development as a linear, discrete, stepwise and non-gradual process. This is the view that
informs research on ‗stages‘ of acquisition and on information processing.
The core theoretical thought that lies beneath research of this kind is that development takes place in
passing through a series of discrete stages. As a consequence, the transition from one stage to the next is a

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 UM Panabo College
Department of Teacher Education
P.N. Arguelles St., San Francisco, Panabo City
Telefax # (084) 628-6437
‗stepwise movement‘ from one set of grammatical rules to another. In other words, a linguistic form or
structure that is not part of a learner‘s interlanguage at a given stage or point in time is present in
subsequent stages. The implication of this is that the acquisition of a given form, as expressed by its
‗presence‘ or ‗absence‘ in the learner‘s interlanguage, should be understood as uncontroversial evidence
of the existence of a sequence of stages in the acquisition of features in the target language. This is true
irrespective of the rate of transition across stages and of the regularity in the use of these forms.
Revisiting the “target language” and the goal of near –nativeness
For many L2 speakers and their teachers, the ideal ultimate learning goal is often to acquire the linguistic
ability of a native speaker, characterized by native or near-native accent (Tokumoto & Shibata, 2011).
However, adult L2 speakers rarely pass for native speakers (Bongaerts, van Summeren, Planken, &
Schils, 1997), so accented L2 speech is generally seen as normal and often unavoidable, even for speakers
who begin learning at an early age (Flege, Munro, & MacKay, 1995). Considering the difficulty of
acquiring nativelike L2 speech, adopting a more realistic learning goal has been encouraged, with a
particular focus on comprehensibility or ease of understanding (Derwing & Munro, 2009; Levis, 2005).
Indeed, even a heavy L2 accent does not preclude speakers from being highly comprehensible (Munro &
Derwing, 1999). A focus on comprehensibility also seems sensible from a practical perspective, given
that the interlocutor‘s goal in most real-world contexts is to get his or her message across rather than to
pass for a native speaker. Thus, to make informed decisions about future learning goals and to address
these goals through instruction, L2 speakers and their teachers need to know which aspects of language
contribute to comprehensible speech and which are tied to foreign accent.

INSTRUCTED L2 GRAMMAR ACQUISITION: SIX KEY THEORY-PRACTICE LINKS

The influence of second language acquisition (SLA) theory on ELT pedagogy can be seen as far back as
the 1950s and 1960s when behaviorism was the theoretical support for audiolingualism, with its emphasis
on drills and habit formation (VanPatten and Williams 2015). Later, in the 1980s, Stephen Krashen and
Tracy Terrell (1983) developed the natural approach and the monitor model (Krashen 1982; Krashen and
Terrell 1983), which are arguably some of the first modern theories that apply specifically to SLA. The
five hypotheses of the monitor model (acquisition-learning hypothesis, input hypothesis, affective filter
hypothesis, natural order hypothesis, and interface hypothesis) were evident in the ELT classroom
through the strong and weak versions of communicative language teaching, with a move away from rote
language practice and explicit language instruction. Indeed, Krashen recommended that teachers provide
an input-rich environment for their students in the classroom. More recently, the influences of focus on
form (Long 1991, 1996) and task-based language teaching (Willis 1996) can be seen in the movement to
include attention to both communication and linguistic structures in the classroom.
The Goal of Instruction
Two foundational questions underpinning ISLA are ―What are the goals of instruction?‖ and ―How do we
help learners achieve these goals?‖ (Loewen 2015; VanPatten 2017) Students, teachers, and
administrators ask these questions as well, even though they might not take the time to reflect fully on
these questions. Consequently, students and teachers might continue in the classroom not knowing what
target they are aiming at, even though L2 learning goals are frequently implied in teaching guidelines. To
this end, understanding the goals of L2 instruction can influence the pedagogy necessary to attain those
goals.
Interaction
One way that ISLA research has tried to balance the development of explicit and implicit knowledge is to
advocate instruction that incorporates both types of knowledge during interaction (Loewen and Sato
2018). This theoretical and pedagogical framework has been most commonly referred to as focus on form
(Long 1996) or form-focused instruction (Ellis 2001; Spada 1997). The premise of the framework is that
learners‘ attention is shifted to specific linguistic structures while their primary focus is on meaning. For
example, when conducting an information and opinion gap task in which learners have to discuss the
relative merits of various scholarship candidates, and then decide which one should receive the

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 UM Panabo College
Department of Teacher Education
P.N. Arguelles St., San Francisco, Panabo City
Telefax # (084) 628-6437
scholarship, learners might be exposed to various grammatical structures (e.g., conditionals) and
vocabulary items that are useful for completing the task. During the interaction, learners might need to
pause briefly to think about the grammatical forms or vocabulary words they need to use to express their
meaning. Thus, learners are shifting between meaning and form.
Grammar
Grammar has received considerable attention from both researchers and teachers; however, the focus has
shifted over time. Although grammar-translation and explicit metalinguistic instruction have not
completely disappeared in ELT, there has been considerable acknowledgment that such methods do not
produce learners who can communicate effectively in English. However, there has also been a reaction
against strong forms of communicative language teaching that do not allow a role for grammar
instruction. Consequently, much current theory and research are concerned with form-focused instruction
that can help learners develop knowledge of grammar that they can use fluently and accurately.
Vocabulary
Applying ISLA theory and research findings on vocabulary acquisition to pedagogy raises several issues
that are different from those related to grammar. For example, the emphasis on implicit knowledge, which
is important for grammar acquisition, may be less relevant for vocabulary learning because most
vocabulary knowledge is explicit. That is, if learners know a word, they are generally able to state its
meaning, which is the very definition of explicit knowledge. However, there are some aspects of
vocabulary knowledge that are also implicit (Sonbul and Schmitt 2013). For example, the knowledge of
word collocation (i.e., which words often occur together, such as go golfing or play tennis) may not be
explicit but may instead develop implicitly over time. Additionally, it is possible to have implicit
knowledge of how common a word is or the domains in which it occurs. However, most research into
vocabulary has investigated explicit knowledge.
Pronunciation
In terms of pronunciation, there are several issues that concern ISLA researchers. First, similar to the
larger goals of L2 learning, it is important to decide on the goal of pronunciation teaching and learning
(Derwing and Munro 2015). In the past, many teachers and learners have viewed English native speakers
as the goal for pronunciation, particularly the pronunciation norms of British or American English.
However, there are two problems with this goal. First, there are multiple nativespeaker dialects to choose
from within and across English-speaking communities. Second, most L2 learners are not able to achieve a
native-speaker accent if they start learning after puberty. Therefore, more recently, there has been a push
to make intelligibility the goal of pronunciation instruction. From this perspective, what is essential is for
learners to be understood by their interlocutors rather than to sound like native speakers.
Pragmatics
Pragmatics is another area of language that has received less attention than other areas; however, again
there is growing interest in pragmatic instruction, particularly because many English L2 learners are
exposed to a limited range of social contexts and situations in which they can acquire pragmatic
knowledge. Especially in foreign language contexts, where there is limited opportunity for interaction in
the L2 outside of class, learners are confined to using the L2 in the classroom, either with the teacher or
other students. Even in second language contexts where English is the dominant language of society,
learners may have difficulty finding opportunities to interact with L1 English speakers (Ranta and
Meckelborg 2013).
Individual Differences
In addition to investigating the issues and challenges related to learning specific areas of language, ISLA
research has examined the role of individual differences in L2 classroom learning. It is clear that some
individual differences are less relevant for language teaching because there is little that teachers can do to
manipulate them. For example, the area of language aptitude and other cognitive abilities such as working
memory have been widely investigated in ISLA research (e.g., Li 2017). However, teachers can do very
little in the classroom to improve learners‘ language aptitude or working memory. Although there have
been pedagogical suggestions that different types of instruction might be offered to learners with different

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 UM Panabo College
Department of Teacher Education
P.N. Arguelles St., San Francisco, Panabo City
Telefax # (084) 628-6437
cognitive abilities, this option may be impractical for individual teachers who most likely have students
with a range of cognitive abilities in their classes. A better option might be to vary instruction so that
different instructional techniques and activities benefit learners with different cognitive abilities.
Explicit versus implicit instruction does not have to be an either-or-proposition
Relating Explicitness of Content, Attitude and Self
It is evident that explicit representation of self as holder of an attitude (e.g., "I know ...") contains an
explicit representation of the attitude ("know"). The interesting question concerns the degree to which
explicit representation of knowing requires explicit representation of the content (e.g., this is a cat). That
is: Is it possible to explicitly represent ‖I know‖ or ‖it is known‖ and leave implicit the fact that this is a
cat (Fb). In a variation of the naming game an expression like, "I know," can be implicitly conveying that
the knowledge is of the fact that Fb. However, inside a (rational) agent this explicit reflection on
knowledge implies explicit factuality of the known; one must be able to judge the factuality of the known
fact before coming to the conclusion that one knows that fact. Since explicit factuality implies
explicitness of predication, individuals, and properties, we can conclude that explicit representation of self
or attitude implies explicit representation of the content. The dependencies we have discussed are
summarised in Figure 1. If an aspect at a higher level is represented explicitly (at the origin of an arrow)
then—according to our analysis—all aspects at a lower level (at the end of the arrow) must also be
explicitly represented.
Implicitness Due to Conceptual Structure.
This kind of implicitness (structure implicitness) typically arises when the system represents (has a
concept for) properties that can be defined as compounds of more basic properties; for example, the
property of being a bachelor has the components of being male and unmarried. So if one explicitly states
that a person is a bachelor, then one implicitly conveys that he is also unmarried, because being
unmarried is a necessary, supportive fact for being a bachelor. Similarly, one can explicitly know that
someone is a bachelor, but not explicitly know that he is not married. However, as not being married is a
necessary fact for being a bachelor, this fact is known implicitly. In this example, the structure of the
component properties (male, unmarried, etc.) remains implicit in the explicit representation of the
compound property (being a bachelor): a case of ‖property-structure implicitness‖. Roberts and MacLeod
(1995) argued that concepts acquired incidentally and nonstrategically may have nondecomposable
atomic representations in which the property structure is represented implicitly in our terminology.
Whereas Karmiloff-Smith's research emphasises how implicit knowledge becomes increasingly zexplicit
with development, dissociations between two competing knowledge bases have also been found—
dissociations reminiscent of those in visual perception (e.g. Diamond & Goldman-Rakic, 1989; Goldin-
Meadow, Alibali, and Church, 1993; Clements & Perner, 1994). Goldin-Meadow et al review studies that
show that the acquisition of concepts of quantity (Piaget & Inhelder, 1974/ 41) can be more advanced in
children's gestural comments than in their verbal responses. One of the interpretations of this finding was
(Church & Goldin-Meadow, 1986) that the multidimensional spatial medium of hand gesture makes it
easier to express novel ideas than the unidimensional temporal medium of linguistic expression.
However, one can think of the gestures as spontaneous (mostly unconscious) concomitants of the thinking
process. In that case the earlier emergence of advanced knowledge might be the sign of thoughts about
reality that have not yet been recognised as being about reality (implicit factuality). This interpretation fits
a parallel finding in children's developing "theory of mind".

Meaning-focused communication tasks can promote the acquisition of L2 grammar

The noninterface position
The noninterface position, adopted by researchers such as Krashen (1985) and Schwartz (1993), holds
that the only kind of information that is usable for L2 language acquisition is naturally occurring instances
of the language, otherwise referred to as "positive evidence", or, as Krashen (1985) terms it,
"comprehensible input". This position holds that teaching grammar or correcting learner errors has no
effect on the learner's acquired linguistic knowledge or interlanguage. Krashen (1985:1–3) maintains that

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 UM Panabo College
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there is no interface between learned knowledge, which results from conscious learning, and acquired
knowledge, which results from learners' exposure to comprehensible input.
The strong interface position
In contrast to the noninterface position, the strong interface position holds that, through repeated practice,
learned knowledge can be converted to acquired knowledge, which will result in natural L2 use.
Proponents of this view are concerned with the question of how this conversion may take place. One such
proponent is De Keyser (1998), whose research indicates that explicit FFI leads to significantly larger
gains in L2 learning than does implicit learning.
The weak interface position
Researchers who hold the weak-interface position maintain that if L2 material is placed within a
meaningful context in an inconspicuous way, but is made sufficiently salient for further processing, it
may draw learners' attention to "notice" the form of the target language, and thus eventually to acquire it
(Norris and Ortega 2001:159). This position finds support amongst researchers such as White (1989),
who suggests that although much of an L2 can be learned on the basis of exposure to positive evidence
(viz. information about what is permissible in the target language grammar), learners may need negative
evidence (viz. information about what is not permissible), when their interlanguage contains rules that
are more general than the rules of the target language (White 1989:50). White claims that the parameters
linked to L2 learners' principles of universal grammar (UG) have been fixed according to their L1
grammar and that for the L2 learners to change these parameter settings, they need negative evidence, i.e.
evidence that a certain form does not occur in the target language. Positive evidence will not suffice in
this case, as it will not contain the non-occurring utterances (Le Roux 1994:23).
Three different types of L2 instruction
The interface positions outlined above underlie three significantly different types of L2 instruction,
namely focus-on-meaning, focus-on-form and focus-on-formS instruction, which are described below.
Focus-on-meaning instruction
The focus-on-meaning (FonM) approach to L2 instruction corresponds with the noninterface view, by
providing exposure to rich input and meaningful use of the L2 in context, which is intended to lead to
incidental acquisition of the L2 (Norris and Ortega 2001:160). A FonM instructional approach can be
widely found in contemporary English Language classrooms, in techniques such as Krashen and Terrell's
Natural Approach, some content-based ESL instruction and immersion programmes (Ellis 1994:571).
Form-focused instruction
The term "form-focused instruction" (FFI) is defined by Ellis (2001:2) as "any planned or incidental
instructional activity that is intended to induce language learners to pay attention to linguistic form". It
serves as a generic term for "analytic teaching", "focus on form", "focus on forms", "corrective
feedback/error correction" and "negotiation of form". The term "form-focused instruction" is used to
describe both approaches to teaching forms based on artificial syllabi, as well as more communicative
approaches, where attention to form arises out of activities that are primarily meaning-focused (cf. Long
and Robinson 1998). FFI comprises two subcategories, namely: focus-on-formS and focus-on-form
instruction.
Focus-on-formS instruction
Focus-on-formS (FonFS) instruction is informed by a strong interface view, and occurs when parts of a
grammar are taught as discrete units, in order of their linguistic complexity. This is the traditional
approach to grammar teaching, and is based on an artificially reproduced, as opposed to an "organic",
syllabus. In this approach, language is treated as an object to be studied and language teaching is viewed
to be an actvity to be practised systematically. Furthermore, learners are seen as students, rather than
users of the language (Ellis 2001:14).
Corrective feedback- in many forms- can make a difference
Types of Corrective Feedback
1. Explicit correction. Clearly indicating that the student's utterance was incorrect, the teacher provides
the correct form.

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S : [...] le coyote, le bison et la gr...groue. (phonological error) [...] the coyote, the bison and the
cr...crane."
T: Et la grue. On dit grue. " And the crane. We say crane."
2. Recast. Without directly indicating that the student's utterance was incorrect, the teacher implicitly
reformulates the student's error, or provides the correction.
S: L'eau érable? (grammatical error) "Maple sap?"
T: L'eau d'érable. C'est bien. "Maple sap. Good."
3. Clarification request. By using phrases like "Excuse me?" or "I don't understand," the teacher indicates
that the message has not been understood or that the student's utterance contained some kind of mistake
and that a repetition or a reformulation is required.
S: Est-ce que, est-ce que je peux fait une carte sur le ...pour mon petit frère sur le computer?
(multiple errors)
T: Pardon? "Can, can I made a card on the ...for my little brother on the computer?" "Pardon?"
4. Metalinguistic clues. Without providing the correct form, the teacher poses questions or provides
comments or information related to the formation of the student's utterance (for example, "Do we say it
like that?" "That's not how you say it in French," and "Is it feminine?").
S: Euhm, le, le éléphant. Le éléphant gronde. "Uhm, the, the elephant. The (multiple errors)
elephant growls."
T: Est-ce qu'on dit le éléphant? "Do we say the elephant?"
5. Elicitation. The teacher directly elicits the correct form from the student by asking questions (e.g.,
"How do we say that in French?"), by pausing to allow the student to complete the teacher's utterance
(e.g., "It's a....") or by asking students to reformulate the utterance (e.g., "Say that again."). Elicitation
questions differ from questions that are defined as metalinguistic clues in that they require more than a
yes/no response
S: ...Ben y a un jet de parfum qui sent pas très bon... "...Well, there's a stream of perfume (lexical
error) that doesn't smell very nice..."
T: Alors un jet de parfum on va appeler a un...? "So a stream of perfume, we'll call that a...?
6. Repetition. The teacher repeats the student's error and adjusts intonation to draw student's attention to
it. S: Le...le girafe? (gender error) "The...the giraffe?" T: Le girafe? "The giraffe?
Our pedagogical choices
Pedagogical choices are typically informed by underlying belief systems related to beliefs about teaching
and learning; dispositions and the knowledge and skills developed as teachers (Yero, 2002)
Pedagogical Choices Shulman (1987) suggested that, in order to be effective, teachers needed to possess
what he termed pedagogical content knowledge, because pedagogical content knowledge enables teachers
to make ideas accessible to others. According to Shulman (1987), pedagogical content knowledge refers
to the intersection of three types of knowledge: knowledge of subject matter, knowledge of how to teach,
and knowledge of the learners. When these three elements come together, the teacher is demonstrating
pedagogical content knowledge. In terms of knowledge of subject matter, it is suggested that teachers
need to understand their subject matter deeply and flexibly. Before they can teach others, teachers need to
understand how ideas connect across their subject and to everyday life. In terms of knowledge of how to
teach, teachers need to help students create useful examples, analogies, and representations to relate one
idea to another and to address misconceptions. In terms of knowledge of learners, teachers need to
understand the developmental levels and contexts of their learners as well as come to know their
individual strengths and weaknesses. This article posits that it is this third domain of knowledge of
learners that may need to be extended to include the ability of teachers to develop relationships with
learners that create the conditions for emotional engagement with subject matter.
Culturally Responsive teaching Culturally responsive teaching (CRT) makes use of cultural
characteristics, experiences, and perspectives of those involved in teaching, to enable more effective
teaching. CRT asserts that when learning is situated in the lived experiences and frames of reference of
students, learning becomes more meaningful, interesting, appealing, and thorough (Gay, 2002a). CRT

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 UM Panabo College
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Telefax # (084) 628-6437
constructs education for social justice, access, and equity and nurtures relationships based on care,
respect, and responsibility (Gay, 2002a). According to Hayes and Juárez (2012), CRT is aimed at
preparing teachers to effectively teach all learners, irrespective of their uniqueness. Gay (2002b)
identified the following characteristics of CRT: it is validating, comprehensive, multidimensional,
empowering, transformative, and emancipatory. CRT is seen as validating because it uses the cultural
knowledge, life experiences, and learning preferences of diverse students to make learning more
accessible and effective for all learners. This legitimatises the cultural heritage of learners. CRT is
comprehensive because culturally responsive teachers teach holistically and recognise the importance not
only of academic achievement, but also of maintaining a sense of cultural identity. The
multidimensionality of CRT is recognised in attention to curriculum content, learning context, classroom
environment, learnerteacher relationships, teaching, learning, and assessment strategies (Gay, 2002b).
Because CRT enables learners to develop academic competence, self-efficacy, and initiative, it can be
seen as empowering. CRT also positions learners for self and social change, which is essentially
transformative and emancipatory. According to Banks (1991), CRT enables "students to develop the
knowledge, skills, and values needed to become social critics who can make reflective decisions and
implement their decisions in effective personal, social, political, and economic action"
Intercultural Competence
Globalisation is a characteristic of the modern world that requires intercultural interactions in economic,
technological, social, and educational domains. Intercultural competence is a prerequisite for successful
intercultural interactions. Intercultural competence has therefore become increasingly important in our
daily lives, and no more so than in educational interactions in schools (Perry & Southwell, 2011).
Intercultural competence can be thought of as the ability to act appropriately and sensitively in
intercultural situations. Perry and Southwell (2011) described intercultural competence as being
underpinned by intercultural understanding. Intercultural understanding relates to cognition (knowledge
and awareness of other and own cultures) and affects (attitudes, beliefs, and feelings towards other
cultures). Intercultural competence depends on intercultural understanding but extends this to include
behaviour, action, and communication. Intercultural understanding as part of this competence requires
one to have knowledge about one‘s own and others‘ cultures, knowledge about similarities and
differences, as well as sensitivity towards other cultures. Intercultural sensitivity alludes to attitudes such
as empathy, curiosity, and respect toward other cultures (Perry & Southwell, 2011). Intercultural
competence involves interaction with other cultures particularly within the following dimensions:
knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviours. Developing intercultural competence is seen as a
developmental process beginning with attitude and progressing with the acquisition of knowledge, skills,
behaviour, and an empathetic worldview. A particular set of skills included in this developing competence
is that of intercultural communication that allows for effective and appropriate communication with
different cultures. Matveev and Nelson in Perry and Southwell (2011) identified interpersonal skills, team
effectiveness, cultural uncertainty, and cultural empathy as key intercultural communication skills. Given
that intercultural competence is seen to be developmental, it is important to consider what is being done to
support preservice teachers in developing this competence if they are to become culturally responsive
teachers.
Pedagogical choices based on scenarios
Respondents also stated the pedagogical choices they would be comfortable in making in their open-
ended answers to certain scenarios. Scenarios were formulated in terms of what respondents would do in
their own classrooms, based on practical examples of culturally responsive behaviours. The scenarios
were:
• I would like to establish the type of classroom that. . .
• If I became aware of bullying, teasing, or exclusion of learners in my class I would. . .
• When it comes to helping learners with the skills they need to maintain friendships, I think that
I.
• I would create conditions for academic success by. . .

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 UM Panabo College
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• When it comes to giving learners responsibility and choice in the classroom, I think. . .
• I would like my learners to think that the lessons I give are. . .
• I would like a visitor walking into my classroom to see. . .
• I would like all learners in my class to feel. . .
• I would like my relationship with learners to be . . .
• I think learners who give the most problems are. . .
• The most important characteristics of a good teacher are. . .
The analysis of these open-ended responses was subjected to content analysis procedures; the responses
were analysed using conceptual analysis to determine the presence of most frequent concepts (Busch et
al., 1994–2012). Through a process of selective reduction, the following themes were identified in each
scenario:
• Theme 1: Culturally responsive pedagogical choices: Culturally responsive pedagogical choices
are inclusive and welcoming, value relationships, are engagement centered, and acknowledge
learner potential.
• Theme 2: Profession-driven pedagogical choices: Profession-driven pedagogical choices focus
on the professional nature of teaching, emphasize planning, subject knowledge, teaching
methodology, and learning strategies.
• Theme 3: Rule-based pedagogical choices: Rule-based pedagogical choices are informed by a
management orientation, and focus on administration and discipline in classrooms.
L2 learners play an important role in the grammar acquisition of their peers
Second language play in children’s peer group interactions
Child language research has primarily explored language play in relation to the learning of a first
language. Aspects of morphological, phonological, and syntactic substitutions have been explored both in
children‘s social play (Garvey 1977; Iwamura 1980), and in the solitary ‗language rehearsals‘ of crib
monologues (Weir 1962; Nelson 1989). Language play is seen as a practice that influences children‘s
mastery of a first language at all levels – the lexical, phonological, and grammatical (Weir 1962;
Chukovsky 1963; Cazden 1976; Kirschenblatt-Gimblett 1976; Garvey 1977; Iwamura 1980; Jakobson
1988).
Yet, as pointed out, language play in children‘s L2 learning has not received much attention. Although
such phenomena have recurrently been reported in studies on children‘s L2 interactions, they have not
been discussed or foregrounded in terms of language play. In the following, we will briefly report a series
of such studies. In her analysis of different language learning styles among five second language learners,
Wong Fillmore (1979) noted that one of the children recurrently employed playful formats, acquiring
access to her co-participants by being amusing. In an analysis of speech acts involving children learning
English as a second language, Ervin-Tripp (1981) showed that joking formats were recurrently employed
in children‘s play. In this study, she also documented how children, who were beginner L2 learners of
French, jokingly construed stylized teacher talk, doing role play in French. Cathcart-Strong (1986) has
similarly shown how it is important for the L2 learner to be entertaining in multiparty contexts, where
participation is not guaranteed, and even discusses a conversational maxim among peers ‗be entertaining‘.
In an ethnographic case study of a Polish boy learning English, Krupa-Kwiatkowski (1998) has similarly
documented how a young language learner employed entertainment as a resource in his interactions with
peers.
Phonological and morphological language play in mislabelings
According to developmental research on children‘s comprehension of humor (Bjorklund 1989), the
simplest types of jokes involve mislabeling, that is, calling something by an erroneous name. Such a
competence emerges when children are 2 years of age (ibid.). Among school age children, as in the
present data, mislabelings can be seen as one of several examples of ‗willful violations‘ being used as
ways of acting funny (cf. Garvey 1977; Broner and Tarone 2001).
Semantic-syntactic language play in rudimentary puns

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Mislabelings require little language proficiency in that the speaker may assume a joking stance even when
s/he has acquired only a very basic vocabulary. In contrast, puns draw on syntactic or semantic
ambiguities, as when homonyms may index not only different meanings, but also different syntactic
functions. Drawing on a study of school age children‘s joke productions, SuttonSmith (1976) has
discussed how riddles constitute a dominant type of joke among children in the first three grades of
elementary school. In contrast, children in grades 4 – 8 produce a greater number of canned jokes or
funny stories. Riddles drawing on homonymy, that is, puns, constitute a canonical type of joke, e.g.,
‗Question: Why did the dog go out into the sun? Answer: He wanted to be a hot dog‘ (Sutton-Smith
1976). Such riddles require linguistic awareness on the part of the listener, who has to attend to the
syntactic ambiguity (here, in the case of ‗hot‘, which can either refer to the adjective ‗hot‘ or to the
compound noun ‗Hot Dog‘).
Our ability to use and acquire language is constrained by limited attentional resources
Language Acquisition
• Language is extremely complex, yet children already know most of the grammar of their native
language(s) before they are five years old
• Children acquire language without being taught the rules of grammar by their parents
Stages in Language Acquisition
• Children acquire language in similar stages across the world
• When children are acquiring language, they do not speak a degenerate form of adult language
The Role of Imitation, Reinforcement, and Analogy
• Children do imitate the speech heard around them to a certain extent, but language acquisition
goes beyond imitation
– Children produce utterances that they never hear from adults around them, such as
holded or tooths
– Children cannot imitate adults fully while acquiring grammar
• Adult: Where can I put them?
• Child: Where I can put them?
– Children who develop the ability to speak later in their childhood can understand the
language spoken around them even if they cannot imitate it
• Another theory posits that children learn through positive and negative reinforcement
– But, parents rarely correct their children‘s speech, and when they do they correct based
on pronunciation and factual accuracy rather than grammatical accuracy
– Parents do sometimes recast children‘s utterances, but not consistently, and they also
tend to recast grammatical sentences to reinforce correct content
Another theory asserts that children hear a sentence and then use it as a model to form other sentences by
analogy
– But while analogy may work in some situations, but certainly not in all situations:
• I painted a red barn.
• I painted a barn red.
• I saw a red barn.
• *I saw a barn red.
– Children never make mistakes of this kind based on analogy which shows that they understand
structure dependency at a very young age
• It has also been suggested that children are able to learn language because adults speak
to them in a simplified version of language known as motherese, child-directed speech
(CDS), or baby talk
– But, motherese is not syntactically simple and does not drop verb inflections or omit function
words
– In many cultures adults do not engage in motherese, yet children in those cultures acquire
language in the same way as children who are exposed to motherese

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 UM Panabo College
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Telefax # (084) 628-6437
Theories of Bilingual Development
• Unitary system hypothesis: the idea that the child initially constructs only one lexicon
and one grammar
• Evidence for: language mixing similar to codeswitching; lexical items existing in only
one language
• Evidence against: there is a lot of overlap in the lexicon for each language, and children
may have gaps because each language is used in different contexts and they can only
learn so many words each day
• Separate systems hypothesis: the idea that the child builds a distinct lexicon and
grammar for each language
– Evidence for:
• where the two languages diverge grammatically, the child will acquire two different sets
of rules • bilingual children select which language to use based on the context
• children bilingual in sign language and a spoken language may say a word in one
language and sign it in the other simultaneously

Self-Help: You can also refer to the sources below to help you further understand the
lesson:

Online references:
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Applied Linguistics & English Literature. 4. 124 - 131. 10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.3p.123.
*Crowther, Dustin & Trofimovich, Pavel & Saito, Kazuya & Isaacs, Talia. (2015). Second Language
Comprehensibility Revisited: Investigating the Effects of Learner Background. TESOL
Quarterly. 49. 814-837. 10.1002/tesq.203.
*Pérez, Laura. (2010). Systematicity and Variability in over time IL development: Developmental
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*Retrieved from: http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/Zoltan_Dienes/BBS.pdf

*Retrieved from: https://carla.umn.edu/cobaltt/modules/strategies/c_feedback.pdf
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4781.2008.00716.x.pdf?sequence=1
*Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1191679.pdf
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*Retrieved from: Loewen, Shawn & Sato, Masatoshi. (2018). Instructed second language acquisition and
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